For the first few days the children clamoured intermittently for him; but children forget, and Billy continued to cast out his pack in undying hope of a fox or bunny, and the younger children brought their butterfly-nets and sand-shovels to Austin and Nina for repairs; and Drina, when Boots deserted her for his Air Line Company, struck up a wholesome and lively friendship with a dozen subfreshmen and the younger Orchil girls, and began to play golf like a little fiend.
It was possible, now, to ride cross-country; and Nina, who was always in terror of an added ounce to her perfect figure, rode every day with Eileen; and Austin, on a big hunter, joined them two days in the week.
There were dances, too, and Nina went to some of them. So did Eileen, who had created a furor among the younger brothers and undergraduates; and the girl was busy enough with sailing and motoring and dashing through the Sound in all sorts of power boats.
Once, under Austin’s and young Craig’s supervision, she tried shore-bird shooting; but the first broken wing from the gun on her left settled the thing for ever for her, and the horror of the blood-sprinkled, kicking mass of feathers haunted her dreams for a week.
Youths, however, continued to hover numerously about her. They sat in soulful rows upon the veranda at Silverside; they played guitars at her in canoes, accompanying the stringy thrumming with the peculiarly exasperating vocal noises made only by very young undergraduates; they rode with her and Nina; they pervaded her vicinity with a tireless constancy amounting to obsession.
She liked it well enough; she was as interested in everything as usual; as active at the nets, playing superbly, and with all her heart in the game — while it lasted; she swung her slim brassy with all the old-time fire and satisfaction in the clean, sharp whack, as the ball flew through the sunshine, rising beautifully in a long, low trajectory against the velvet fair-green.
It was unalloyed happiness for her to sit her saddle, feeling under her the grand stride of her powerful hunter on a headlong cross-country gallop; it was purest pleasure for her to lean forward in her oilskins, her eyes almost blinded with salt spray, while the low motor-boat rushed on and on through cataracts of foam, and the heaving, green sea-miles fled away, away, in the hissing furrow of the wake.
Truly, for her, the world was still green, the sun bright, the high sky blue; but she had not forgotten that the earth had been greener, the sun brighter, the azure above her more splendid — once upon a time — like the first phrase of a tale that is told. And if she were at times listless, absent-eyed, subdued — a trifle graver, or unusually silent, seeking the still paths of the garden as though in need of youthful meditation and the quiet of the sunset hour, she never doubted that that tale would be retold for her again. Only — alas! — the fair days were passing, and the russet rustle of October sounded already among the curling leaves in the garden; and he had been away a long time — a very long time. And she could not understand.
On one of Austin’s week-end visits, the hour for conjugal confab having arrived and husband and wife locked in the seclusion of their bedroom — being old-fashioned enough to occupy the same — he said, with a trace of irritation in his voice:
“I don’t know where Phil is, or what he’s about. I’m wondering — he’s got the Selwyn conscience, you know — what he’s up to — and if it’s any kind of dam-foolishness. Haven’t you heard a word from him, Nina?”
Nina, in her pretty night attire, had emerged from her dressing-room, locked out Kit-Ki and her maid, and had curled up in a big, soft armchair, cradling her bare ankles in her hand.
“I haven’t heard from him,” she said. “Rosamund saw him in Washington — passed him on the street. He was looking horridly thin and worn, she wrote. He did not see her.”
“Now what in the name of common sense is he doing in Washington!” exclaimed Austin wrathfully. “Probably breaking his heart because nobody cares to examine his Chaosite. I told him, as long as he insisted on bothering the Government with it instead of making a deal with the Lawn people, that I’d furnish him with a key to the lobby. I told him I knew the right people, could get him the right lawyers, and start the thing properly. Why didn’t he come to me about it? There’s only one way to push such things, and he’s as ignorant of it as a boatswain in the marine cavalry.”
Nina said thoughtfully: “You always were impatient of people, dear. Perhaps Phil may get them to try his Chaosite without any wire-pulling. . . . I do wish he’d write. I can’t understand his continued silence. Hasn’t Boots heard from him? Hasn’t Gerald?”
“Not a word. And by the way, Nina, Gerald has done rather an unexpected thing. I saw him last night; he came to the house and told me that he had just severed his connection with Julius Neergard’s company.”
“I’m glad of it!” exclaimed Nina; “I’m glad he showed the good sense to do it!”
“Well — yes. As a matter of fact, Neergard is going to be a very rich man some day; and Gerald might have — But I am not displeased. What appeals to me is the spectacle of the boy acting with conviction on his own initiative. Whether or not he is making a mistake has nothing to do with the main thing, and that is that Gerald, for the first time in his rather colourless career, seems to have developed the rudiments of a backbone out of the tail which I saw so frequently either flourishing defiance at me or tucked sullenly between his hind legs. I had quite a talk with him last night; he behaved very decently, and with a certain modesty which may, one day, develop into something approaching dignity. We spoke of his own affairs — in which, for the first time, he appeared to take an intelligent interest. Besides that, he seemed willing enough to ask my judgment in several matters — a radical departure from his cub days.”
“What are you going to do for him, dear?” asked his wife, rather bewildered at the unexpected news. “Of course he must go into some sort of business again—”
“Certainly. And, to my astonishment, he actually came and solicited my advice. I — I was so amazed, Nina, that I could scarcely credit my own senses. I managed to say that I’d think it over. Of course he can, if he chooses, begin everything again and come in with me. Or — if I am satisfied that he has any ability — he can set up some sort of a real-estate office on his own hook. I could throw a certain amount of business in his way — but it’s all in the air, yet. I’ll see him Monday, and we’ll have another talk. By gad! Nina,” he added, with a flush of half-shy satisfaction on his ruddy face, “it’s — it’s almost like having a grown-up son coming bothering me with his affairs; ah — rather agreeable than otherwise. There’s certainly something in that boy. I — perhaps I have been, at moments, a trifle impatient. But I did not mean to be. You know that, dear, don’t you?”
His wife looked up at her big husband in quiet amusement. “Oh, yes! I know a little about you,” she said, “and a little about Gerald, too. He is only a masculine edition of Eileen — the irresponsible freedom of life brought out all his faults at once, like a horrid rash; it’s due to the masculine notion of masculine education. His sister’s education was essentially the contrary: humours were eradicated before first symptoms became manifest. The moral, mental, and physical drilling and schooling was undertaken and accepted without the slightest hope — and later without the slightest desire — for any relaxation of the rigour when she became of age and mistress of herself. That’s the difference: a boy looks forward to the moment when he can flourish his heels and wag his ears and bray; a girl has no such prospect. Gerald has brayed; Eileen never will flourish her heels unless she becomes fashionable after marriage — which isn’t very likely—”
Nina hesitated, another idea intruding.
“By the way, Austin; the Orchil boy — the one in Harvard — proposed to Eileen — the little idiot! She told me — thank goodness! she still does tell me things. Also the younger and chubbier Draymore youth has offered himself — after a killingly proper interview with me. I thought it might amuse you to hear of it.”
“It might amuse me more if Eileen would g
et busy and bring Philip into camp,” observed her husband. “And why the devil they don’t make up their minds to it is beyond me. That brother of yours is the limit sometimes. I’m fond of him — you know it — but he certainly can be the limit sometimes.”
“Do you know,” said Nina, “that I believe he is in love with her?”
“Then, why doesn’t—”
“I don’t know. I was sure — I am sure now — that the girl cares more for him than for anybody. And yet — and yet I don’t believe she is actually in love with him. Several times I supposed she was — or near it, anyway. . . . But they are a curious pair, Austin — so quaint about it; so slow and old-fashioned. . . . And the child is the most innocent being — in some ways. . . . Which is all right unless she becomes one of those pokey, earnest, knowledge-absorbing young things with the very germ of vitality dried up and withered in her before she awakens. . . . I don’t know — I really don’t. For a girl must have something of the human about her to attract a man, and be attracted. . . . Not that she need know anything about love — or even suspect it. But there must be some response in her, some — some—”
“Deviltry?” suggested Austin.
His pretty wife laughed and dropped one knee over the other, leaning back to watch him finish his good-night cigarette. After a moment her face grew grave, and she bent forward.
“Speaking of Rosamund a moment ago reminds me of something else she wrote — it’s about Alixe. Have you heard anything?”
“Not a word,” said Austin, with a frank scowl, “and don’t want to.”
“It’s only this — that Alixe is ill. Nobody seems to know what the matter is; nobody has seen her. But she’s at Clifton, with a couple of nurses, and Rosamund heard rumours that she is very ill indeed. . . . People go to Clifton for shattered nerves, you know.”
“Yes; for bridge-fidgets, neurosis, pip, and the various jumps that originate in the simpler social circles. What’s the particular matter with her? Too many cocktails? Or a dearth of grand slams?”
“You are brutal, Austin. Besides, I don’t know. She’s had a perfectly dreary life with her husband. . . . I — I can’t forget how fond I was of her in spite of what she did to Phil. . . . Besides, I’m beginning to be certain that it was not entirely her fault.”
“What? Do you think Phil—”
“No, no, no! Don’t be an utter idiot. All I mean to say is that Alixe was always nervous and high-strung; odd at times; eccentric — more than merely eccentric—”
“You mean dippy?”
“Oh, Austin, you’re horrid. I mean that there is mental trouble in that family. You have heard of it as well as I; you know her father died of it—”
“The usual defence in criminal cases,” observed Austin, flicking his cigarette-end into the grate. “I’m sorry, dear, that Alixe has the jumps; hope she’ll get over ‘em. But as for pretending I’ve any use for her, I can’t and don’t and won’t. She spoiled life for the best man I know; she kicked his reputation into a cocked hat, and he, with his chivalrous Selwyn conscience, let her do it. I did like her once; I don’t like her now, and that’s natural and it winds up the matter. Dear friend, shall we, perhaps, to bed presently our way wend — yess?”
“Yes, dear; but you are not very charitable about Alixe. And I tell you I’ve my own ideas about her illness — especially as she is at Clifton. . . . I wonder where her little beast of a husband is?”
But Austin only yawned and looked at the toes of his slippers, and then longingly at the pillows.
Had Nina known it, the husband of Mrs. Ruthven, whom she had characterised so vividly, was at that very moment seated in a private card-room at the Stuyvesant Club with Sanxon Orchil, George Fane, and Bradley Harmon; and the game had been bridge, as usual, and had gone very heavily against him.
Several things had gone against Mr. Ruthven recently; for one thing, he was beginning to realise that he had made a vast mistake in mixing himself up in any transactions with Neergard.
When he, at Neergard’s cynical suggestion, had consented to exploit his own club — the Siowitha — and had consented to resign from it to do so, he had every reason to believe that Neergard meant to either mulct them heavily or buy them out. In either case, having been useful to Neergard, his profits from the transaction would have been considerable.
But, even while he was absorbed in figuring them up — and he needed the money, as usual — Neergard coolly informed him of his election to the club, and Ruthven, thunder-struck, began to perceive the depth of the underground mole tunnels which Neergard had dug to undermine and capture the stronghold which had now surrendered to him.
Rage made him ill for a week; but there was nothing to do about it. He had been treacherous to his club and to his own caste, and Neergard knew it — and knew perfectly well that Ruthven dared not protest — dared not even whimper.
Then Neergard began to use Ruthven when he needed him; and he began to permit himself to win at cards in Ruthven’s house — a thing he had not dared to do before. He also permitted himself more ease and freedom in that house — a sort of intimacy sans façon — even a certain jocularity. He also gave himself the privilege of inviting the Ruthvens on board the Niobrara; and Ruthven went, furious at being forced to stamp with his open approval an episode which made Neergard a social probability.
How it happened that Rosamund divined something of the situation is not quite clear; but she always had a delicate nose for anything not intended for her, and the thing amused her immensely, particularly because what viciousness had been so long suppressed in Neergard was now tentatively making itself apparent in his leering ease among women he so recently feared.
This, also, was gall and wormwood to Ruthven, so long the official lap-dog of the very small set he kennelled with; and the women of that set were perverse enough to find Neergard amusing, and his fertility in contriving new extravagances for them interested these people, whose only interest had always been centred in themselves.
Meanwhile, Neergard had almost finished with Gerald — he had only one further use for him; and as his social success became more pronounced with the people he had crowded in among, he became bolder and more insolent, no longer at pains to mole-tunnel toward the object desired, no longer overcareful about his mask. And one day he asked the boy very plainly why he had never invited him to meet his sister. And he got an answer that he never forgot.
And all the while Ruthven squirmed under the light but steadily inflexible pressure of the curb which Neergard had slipped on him so deftly; he had viewed with indifference Gerald’s boyish devotion to his wife, which was even too open and naïve to be of interest to those who witnessed it. But he had not counted on Neergard’s sudden hatred of Gerald; and the first token of that hatred fell upon the boy like a thunderbolt when Neergard whispered to Ruthven, one night at the Stuyvesant Club, and Ruthven, exasperated, had gone straight home, to find his wife in tears, and the boy clumsily attempting to comfort her, both her hands in his.
“Perhaps,” said Ruthven coldly, “you have some plausible explanation for this sort of thing. If you haven’t, you’d better trump up one together, and I’ll send you my attorney to hear it. In that event,” he added, “you’d better leave your joint address when you find a more convenient house than mine.”
As a matter of fact, he had really meant nothing more than the threat and the insult, the situation permitting him a heavier hold upon his wife and a new grip on Gerald in case he ever needed him; but threat and insult were very real to the boy, and he knocked Mr. Ruthven flat on his back — the one thing required to change that gentleman’s pretence to deadly earnest.
Ruthven scrambled to his feet; Gerald did it again; and, after that, Mr. Ruthven prudently remained prone during the delivery of a terse but concise opinion of him expressed by Gerald.
After Gerald had gone, Ruthven opened first one eye, then the other, then his mouth, and finally sat up; and his wife, who had been curiously observing him, smiled.
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“It is strange,” she said serenely, “that I never thought of that method. I wonder why I never thought of it,” lazily stretching her firm young arms and glancing casually at their symmetry and smooth-skinned strength. “Go into your own quarters,” she added, as he rose, shaking with fury: “I’ve endured the last brutality I shall ever suffer from you.”
She dropped her folded hands into her lap, gazing coolly at him; but there was a glitter in her eyes which arrested his first step toward her.
“I think,” she said, “that you mean my ruin. Well, we began it long ago, and I doubt if I have anything of infamy to learn, thanks to my thorough schooling as your wife. . . . But knowledge is not necessarily practice, and it happens that I have not cared to commit the particular indiscretion so fashionable among the friends you have surrounded me with. I merely mention this for your information, not because I am particularly proud of it. It is not anything to be proud of, in my case — it merely happened so; a matter, perhaps of personal taste, perhaps because of lack of opportunity; and there is a remote possibility that belated loyalty to a friend I once betrayed may have kept me personally chaste in this rotting circus circle you have driven me around in, harnessed to your vicious caprice, dragging the weight of your corruption—”
She laughed. “I had no idea that I could be so eloquent, Jack. But my mind has become curiously clear during the last year — strangely and unusually limpid and precise. Why, my poor friend, every plot of yours and of your friends — every underhand attempt to discredit and injure me has been perfectly apparent to me. You supposed that my headaches, my outbursts of anger, my wretched nights, passed in tears — and the long, long days spent kneeling in the ashes of dead memories — all these you supposed had weakened — perhaps unsettled — my mind. . . . You lie if you deny it, for you have had doctors watching me for months. . . . You didn’t know I was aware of it, did you? But I was, and I am. . . . And you told them that my father died of — of brain trouble, you coward!”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 355